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Education Doctoral Ralph C. Wilson, Jr. School of Education

8-2011

Engaging Parents of 8th Grade Students in Parent/Teacher Bidirectional CommunicationWaveline Bennett-ConroySt. John Fisher College

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Recommended CitationBennett-Conroy, Waveline, "Engaging Parents of 8th Grade Students in Parent/Teacher Bidirectional Communication" (2011).Education Doctoral. Paper 68.

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Engaging Parents of 8th Grade Students in Parent/Teacher BidirectionalCommunication

AbstractThe study purpose was to develop and evaluate a low-cost school-based intervention to increase parent s’involvement in their children’s education . Although parent involvement is associated with increased studenteducational achievement, many children who most need effective parent involvement support do not receiveit. In Phase 1 of the study, 17 parents of 8 th grade students in a low-income, immigrant, minority schooldistrict were interviewed to conduct a qualitative assessment of factors for lack of effective parent involvementand to assess the feasibility and acceptability of the planned intervention. In Phase 2 of the study, 192 studentsin nine 8 th grade English classes were given weekly homework assignments for seven weeks that requiredparent/child interaction to complete the assignment. Three of these classes were randomly selected to receiveteacher outreach to initiate parent/teacher bidirectional c ommunication with students’ parents . The mainhypothesis was that teachers would have bidirectional conversations of at least five minutes duration with agreater proportion of intervention class parents than with control class parents. Additional hypotheses werethat intervention class students would submit more homework assignments and have higher homeworkgrades than control class students. These hypotheses were confirmed by chi-square analysis, p < .001. Thestudy demonstrated that a low-cost intervention to improve parent involvement at-home and atschool among8 th grade students is feasible, acceptable to all stakeholders, and effective. Since the federal No Child LeftBehind Act prioritizes greater parent/teacher bidirectional communication, policy makers may be interestedin supporting this intervention.

Document TypeDissertation

Degree NameDoctor of Education (EdD)

DepartmentExecutive Leadership

First SupervisorConstance W. Iervolino

Second SupervisorJohn J. Koster

Subject CategoriesEducation

This dissertation is available at Fisher Digital Publications: https://fisherpub.sjfc.edu/education_etd/68

Engaging Parents of 8th

Grade Students in Parent/Teacher Bidirectional Communication

By

Waveline Bennett-Conroy

Submitted in partial fulfillment

of the requirements for the degree

Ed.D. in Executive Leadership

Supervised by

Constance W. Iervolino, Ed.D.

Committee Member

John J. Koster, Ph.D.

Ralph C. Wilson, Jr. School of Education

St. John Fisher College

August 2011

ii

Biographical Sketch

Waveline Bennett-Conroy is currently Director of Pupil Personnel Services at the Mount

Vernon City School District, Mount Vernon, New York. Ms. Bennett-Conroy attended

the Jamaica College of Agriculture, Science, and Education from 1972 to 1976 and

graduated with a Bachelor degree with a Science Major in 1976. She attended the

University of the West Indies from 1976 to 1978 and graduated with a Master of Arts in

Foreign Language degree in 1978. She attended Fordham University from 1992 to 1996

and graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Science in 1995 and a

Master of Arts degree in Sociology in 1996. She attended the College of New Rochelle

from 2002 to 2005 and graduated with a Master of Science degree in Educational

Administration and Supervision in 2005. She began doctoral studies at the St. John Fisher

College Program in Executive Leadership at the College of New Rochelle campus in

2009. Ms. Bennett-Conroy pursued her research in parent involvement in their children’s

education under the direction of Dr. Constance W. Iervolino and Dr. John J. Koster and

received the Ed.D. degree in August, 2011.

iii

Abstract

The study purpose was to develop and evaluate a low-cost school-based intervention to

increase parents’ involvement in their children’s education. Although parent involvement

is associated with increased student educational achievement, many children who most

need effective parent involvement support do not receive it. In Phase 1 of the study, 17

parents of 8th

grade students in a low-income, immigrant, minority school district were

interviewed to conduct a qualitative assessment of factors for lack of effective parent

involvement and to assess the feasibility and acceptability of the planned intervention. In

Phase 2 of the study, 192 students in nine 8th

grade English classes were given weekly

homework assignments for seven weeks that required parent/child interaction to complete

the assignment. Three of these classes were randomly selected to receive teacher outreach

to initiate parent/teacher bidirectional communication with students’ parents. The main

hypothesis was that teachers would have bidirectional conversations of at least five

minutes duration with a greater proportion of intervention class parents than with control

class parents. Additional hypotheses were that intervention class students would submit

more homework assignments and have higher homework grades than control class

students. These hypotheses were confirmed by chi-square analysis, p < .001. The study

demonstrated that a low-cost intervention to improve parent involvement at-home and at-

school among 8th

grade students is feasible, acceptable to all stakeholders, and effective.

Since the federal No Child Left Behind Act prioritizes greater parent/teacher bidirectional

communication, policy makers may be interested in supporting this intervention.

iv

Table of Contents

Biographical Sketch ………………………………………………...…………….ii

Abstract …………..………………………………………………………………iii

Table of Contents …………………………………...……………………………iv

List of Tables ……………………………………………………………….……vi

List of Figures ……………………………………………………………….…..vii

Chapter 1: Introduction …………………………………………..........………….1

Statement of the Problem ………….…………………………...……….……1

Theoretical Rationale …………………….………….………....…...........…..4

Significance of the Study …………………….………………………………5

Purpose of the Study ……………………….…………...................................7

Research Question ………………………….………….………...…….….....7

Definitions of Terms ……………………….………………………..….……7

Summary of Remaining Chapters……………….…………….………..…….9

Chapter 2: Review of the Literature ……………………….…………………….11

Introduction and Purpose ………………………….………….…………….11

Topic Analysis ………………………………………….…………………..11

Summary and Conclusion…………………………….………….…….……25

Chapter 3: Research Design Methodology ………………….…….…………….26

General Perspective ………………………………….……….…………….26

Research Context ………………………………….….……………….……28

v

Research Participants ………………………………..……….……………..29

Instruments Used in Data Collection …………….……….……….…...…...32

Procedures for Data Collection and Analysis……………….…….……..….33

Chapter 4: Results ……………………………………………….…………..…..37

Research Questions ……………………………………………….…….…..37

Phase 1 Data Analysis and Findings ………………………………..............37

Summary of Phase 1 Results ...………………….……………….…………42

Phase 2 Data Analysis and Findings ……………………………..................43

Summary of Phase 2 Results ………...……….…………………….………48

Chapter 5: Discussion …………………………………….…………………..…49

Introduction …………………….………………………………………..….49

Implication of Findings ……………………………………….……….……51

Limitations ……………………………………………………….…………55

Recommendations …………………………………………….…….………59

Conclusion …………………………………………………….……………62

References ………………………….……………………………………………70

Appendix A …………………………………...……………..……….………….74

Appendix B ………………….……………………………………………….….79

vi

List of Tables

Item Title Page

Table 3.1 District Middle School Student Population Demographic Data 29

Table 3.2 Parent Intervention Project Student Demographic Data 32

Table 4.1 Parent/Teacher Bidirectional Communication 44

Table 4.2 Parent/Teacher Any Contact 45

Table 4.3 Homework Assignment Submissions 46

Table 4.4 Homework Assignment Grades 47

Table 4.5 Parent Night Attendance 47

vii

List of Figures

Item Title Page

Figure 2.1 Interventions to Increase Parent Involvement

and Improve Student Achievement 12

Figure 2.2 Hoover-Dempsey Model for Parent Involvement 17

Figure 2.3 Mapp Hypothesis on Parent Involvement at School 17

1

Chapter1: Introduction

Introduction

Across the United States, there are millions of underachieving students. Although

parent involvement is associated with higher levels of student achievement, low-cost

evidence-based interventions to increase effective parent involvement have not been

developed for use by low-resource school districts. This dissertation study developed and

evaluated a low-cost intervention to promote effective parent involvement among parents

of 8th

grade students in a low-resource, immigrant, minority school district.

Statement of the Problem

The problem addressed by this research project is that although parents’

involvement (PI) in their children’s schooling is associated with increased student

educational achievement, many children who most need effective PI support do not

receive it. PI initiatives in low-resource, immigrant, minority school districts often fail to

engage a significant percentage of parents as partners in working to improve their

children’s education. This dissertation study contributes to knowledge and practice

because a) it fills a void in existing PI research by quantitatively evaluating an

intervention to promote PI and b) it informs practice on PI.

Many studies and reviews of the literature have argued that increased PI is

associated with improved student achievement (Henderson & Mapp, 2002; Henderson,

Mapp, Johnson, & Davies, 2007; Epstein et al., 2009; Gutman & Midgley, 2000; Simons-

Morton & Crump, 2003; Jeynes, 2005; Hill & Tyson, 2009). A study by Parcel and Dufur

2

(2001) of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth found that parent/teacher

communication was positively associated with increased reading scores among children

in grades 1-8. Although strategies for increasing PI have been published (Henderson et

al., 2007; Epstein et al., 2009), there has been little quantitative evaluation of these

approaches, and these strategies are designed to be implemented at district-wide or

school-wide levels. In an overview of the PI field, Agronick and colleagues (2009) stated,

“There is little evidence that parent involvement strategies succeeded in increasing parent

engagement” (p. 23). Their survey of nine school districts in four Northeastern states,

including New York, found that parent involvement programs “did not necessarily target

parent populations that have been difficult to engage or whose children may be at higher

academic risk” (p. ii). They concluded:

Choices of what to implement to engage parents of students in middle school, and

especially in high school, are limited by a lack of evidence of what works once

students leave elementary school. … the literature revealed a dearth of rigorous

evaluation studies of the effectiveness of parent involvement strategies (p. 23).

Moreover, the financial cost and personnel time requirements for district-wide and

school-wide interventions are so great that they dissuade low-resource districts and

schools from undertaking them.

Existing models used to explain parent motivation for PI have been developed

with studies of parents who are already identified as involved in PI activities at their

children’s schools. For example, the leading PI theoretical model has been developed by

Hoover-Dempsey and colleagues (2005), who state:

3

… we have focused on parents who are involved, in whatever degree, in their

children’s education. Our broader interests, of course, include all parents, because

parents are an integral, usually primary, part of the social context that influences

their children’s educational outcomes. In fact, we strongly suggest that the model

itself offers strong support for theory- and research-based interventions designed

to test approaches to encouraging parents who have not been involved in their

children’s education to become so. However, to learn more about our interest in

parents’ motivations for involvement and the mechanisms that might explain their

influence on students, we began with parents who were involved. This limits the

generalizability of our review findings (p. 124).

Although a few qualitative studies have sought to interview parents identified by

staff of their children’s schools as uninvolved or ineffectively involved (Lawson, 2003;

Lareau & Horvat, 1999), the findings of these studies have not been used to develop

quantitatively evaluated interventions to promote PI among these parents.

The researcher is an administrator in a low-resource, low-income, minority school

district in lower Westchester County, New York, that has had underachieving secondary

schools for several decades. Based upon factors such as attendance at parent/teacher

nights and at PTA meetings, the predominant perception among secondary school

teachers and administrators is that the large majority of parents are not involved in their

children’s educations. The intent of this dissertation study was to interview parents

identified as uninvolved by school staff, and to use the findings of these interviews to

plan and quantitatively evaluate a low-cost intervention that would engage these parents

as partners in promoting their children’s academic achievement.

4

Theoretical Rationale

The PI literature includes a well-articulated theoretical model. Using a

psychological approach derived from Bandura (1986; 1997), Hoover-Dempsey and

colleagues (1995; 1997; 2005) argue that PI is motivated by two belief systems: (a) how

parents construct their role for PI - defined as parents’ beliefs concerning what they

should do and how they should do it, and (b) parents’ beliefs in how effective they can be

in helping their children succeed in school - defined as their beliefs in their ability to

produce the desired outcome. The model holds that both belief systems are socially

constructed, and hence can be influenced by interventions to promote new beliefs about

what parents should do, how they should do it, and how effective their efforts will be. In

addition to role construction and self-efficacy, the model argues that PI is also promoted

by PI invitations from the school, teachers, and parent’s child. The model explains the

positive effects of the particular parent involvement intervention of Teachers Involve

Parents in Schoolwork (TIPS) (Epstein et al., 2009), by pointing out that invitations by

the teacher and child to assist with homework create an expectation that parent

homework involvement is desirable and normative since all parents are asked to assist

with homework. TIPS provides guidance on how the parent should assist with homework,

and the successful completion of the interactive homework assignment gives the parent a

sense of confidence and mastery in being involved in promoting their child’s educational

achievement. Hoover-Dempsey and colleagues argue that PI is influenced by a

component of self efficacy: perceived life context – defined as parents’ beliefs as to

whether they have sufficient time and energy for PI, parent awareness of PI opportunities

at the school, and parent skills and abilities sufficient to communicate with the teacher

5

and with child about schoolwork. (Hoover-Dempsey et al., 2005; Walker, Wilkins,

Dallaire, Sandler, & Hoover-Dempsey, 2005)

A limitation with the Hoover-Dempsey model is that it is missing a PI variable

that Mapp (2003) found to be crucial: the parent’s perception that school staff are caring

and can be trusted. Mapp conducted a qualitative study of a high-functioning Boston

elementary school that included in-depth interviews with 18 involved parents. The

parents Mapp interviewed said that they were involved at the school because they felt

respected, they felt that the staff cared about their children, and they felt that they could

trust the staff.

The PI literature distinguishes between at-home PI, such as discussing school

activities, helping with homework, monitoring the use of out-of-school time, or taking

children to community cultural events; and at-school PI, such as contacts with school

staff, volunteering at the school, or attending school events. (Ho Sui-Chu & Willms,

1996; Trusty, 1999)

This study used the theoretical constructs of role construction, self-efficacy,

invitations, perceptions of school staff as caring and trustworthy, at-home PI, and at-

school PI to conduct qualitative interviews with parents identified by school staff as not

engaged in at-school PI. The purposes of the interviews were to understand current PI

attitudes and practices, identify barriers to PI, and develop ideas for improving PI.

Significance of the Study

PI is associated with student achievement. However, there is little quantitative

evidence on how to best promote effective PI among middle school students, particularly

with previously uninvolved parents and in low-resource school districts. There are

6

millions of under-achieving students in the United States. If PI does promote student

achievement, then an effective low-cost classroom-level intervention to initiate PI among

parents of under-achieving students would be of considerable interest to practitioners.

The research problem has scholarly significance as well as practical significance.

There are groups of researchers who have argued that although PI is associated with

student achievement, the hypothesis that PI causally promotes student achievement has

not been adequately supported by rigorous quantitative research (Agronick, Clark,

O’Donnell, & Stueve, 2009; Fan & Chen, 2001; Mattingly, Prislin, McKenzie,

Rodriguez, & Kayzar, 2002). The identification of an effective low-cost specific

intervention to promote PI at the classroom level would simplify the task of designing

and implementing a longitudinal study of the hypothesis that PI promotes student

achievement.

Although all policy makers endorse PI, many schools and school districts do not

do much more than advertise parent/teacher nights unless grant-funding is available to

support staff dedicated to PI. The researcher of this study supervises the single district-

wide Parent Liaison in a district of 8,000 students. Some teachers in the district conduct

individual outreach to some parents, but many do not. If a specific low-cost PI promotion

practice could be found to positively influence PI, and in a longitudinal study beyond the

time limits of the present study, be found to positively influence student achievement,

then there would be reason to implement district-wide policies that required PI promotion

for all students and over the long term.

7

Purpose of the Study

The purpose of the study was to develop and evaluate a low-cost intervention to

increase parent involvement in their children’s education with previously unengaged

parents.

Research Question

The primary research question for this study was: Can a low-cost intervention

consisting of a focused teacher outreach effort and the use of student/parent interactive

homework assignments succeed at initiating bidirectional parent/teacher communication

with previously uninvolved parents of 8th

grade students in a largely immigrant, minority

school district?

Definitions of Terms

Parent involvement is defined and conceptually organized many different ways

within the PI literature. A commonly used conceptual framework developed by Epstein

defines six general types of PI: (a) parenting (educational expectations, supervising time

use); (b) communicating (parent or school initiated contacts about academic

performance); (c) supporting school (volunteering); (d) learning at home (academic

lessons, music lessons, discussions about school); (e) decision making (PTA

involvement); and (f) collaborating with community (museum visits, girl scouts) (Epstein

et al., 2009). Caution may be required in using this framework for research. Catsambis

(1998) utilized the Epstein framework to examine data from the National Educational

Longitudinal Study (NELS : 88) of 13,580 parents whose children remained in school

from 8th

grade through 12th

grade, and found a strong association between parental

expectations and student achievement, and no association between supervision of time

8

use and student achievement. Similarly, Chen and Gregory (2010) surveyed and

interviewed 59 low-achieving racially diverse 9th

grade students and found that parental

expectations were associated with higher grade point averages, and that parental

participation in activities at school was not associated with higher grade point averages.

In other words, specific PI activities within a general PI category, or across PI categories,

may have different relationships with student achievement. A second common organizing

framework distinguishes between PI at-home such as discussing school activities and

longer-term educational plans, or monitoring out of school activities, and PI at-school

such as contacts with school staff, visiting classes, volunteering, or attending school

events (Ho Sui-Chu & Willms, 1996; Trusty, 1999). In general, the PI literature

categorizes PI at three levels: (a) a specific PI activity, such as supervising time spent on

homework; (b) any one of a specific type of PI activities, such as any at-home parenting

activity related to education; and (c) any PI activity at all, such as any activity in any one

of Epstein’s six categories. Within the PI literature, it is rare for PI activities or categories

to be defined precisely. For example, parents are said to be involved if they take part in

the Parent Teacher Association, rather than if they attend at least three Parent Teacher

Association meetings in a single school year.

Phase 2 of this study quantitatively evaluated an intervention that used

parent/child interactive homework assignments and teacher-to-parent outreach to promote

parent/teacher bidirectional communication. For the purposes of this evaluation, the study

used the following definitions:

Parent: Biological parent, guardian, other older relative, or substitute named by the

parent to work with the student on the homework assignment.

9

Teacher outreach: Effort by the teacher using messages sent home with the child,

messages sent by mail or email, or phone calls to request bidirectional communication

with the parent.

Parent/teacher bidirectional communication: At least five minutes telephone or in-person

conversation between the teacher and the parent. The conversational topics were the

Teachers Involve Parents in Schoolwork (TIPS) assignments and the child’s overall

progress in the class. For the purpose of this study, this definition does not include

school- or teacher-initiated communications that primarily concern deficiencies in

behavior or attendance. Parent/teacher bidirectional communication is a specific type of

at-school PI.

Interactive homework assignment: Students were assigned TIPS homework exercises.

TIPS is a widely used PI strategy that requires students and parents to work together to

complete weekly homework assignments (Epstein et al., 2009). Assisting with homework

is a specific type of at-home PI.

Low-cost: The teacher averaged less than 30 minutes per student during the entire

intervention on outreach and bidirectional communication. For a class of 24 students, this

is 12 hours or less spent on teacher outreach over a seven-week outreach period, or an

average of less than two hours per week.

Summary of Remaining Chapters

The study was conducted in a low-resource, minority school district with the

intention of developing and evaluating a low-cost intervention to increase parents’ at-

school involvement in their child’s education with previously unengaged parents. The

Chapter 2 literature review provides an overview of the dominant paradigm of PI

10

interventions, describes the debate concerning whether the association between PI and

student achievement is causal or merely correlational, reviews PI theoretical concepts,

describes qualitative studies of PI, examines studies that quantitatively evaluated

classroom-level PI interventions, and describes limitations of the PI literature. Chapter 3

presents the study’s mixed methods approach. Theoretical constructs from the PI

literature were used to conduct interviews that qualitatively assessed PI attitudes and

practices among parents who were not regarded by school staff as being engaged by

current school PI promotion activities. Data from this assessment informed a

quantitatively evaluated intervention that used parent/child interactive homework

assignments and teacher-to-parent outreach to achieve teacher/parent bidirectional

communication. All 8th

grade English classes taught by three teachers were assigned

parent/child interactive homework assignments, and one of each teacher’s classes was

randomly selected to receive teacher to parent outreach. Chapter 4 presents findings from

the parent interviews and reports the findings that: (a) a significantly greater proportion

of parents in classes receiving the teacher outreach had bidirectional communication with

the teacher, and (b) students in classes receiving the teacher outreach submitted a

significantly greater proportion of their parent/child interactive homework assignments.

Chapter 5 recommends the intervention as a low-cost method to initiate effective

parent/teacher partnerships in low-resource school districts, and as an intervention that is

suitable for long-term evaluation to assess the hypothesis that increasing PI will increase

student achievement.

11

Chapter 2: Review of the Literature

Introduction and Purpose

The dissertation evaluates the use of a classroom-level intervention to promote

parents’ involvement (PI) in their children’s education. This chapter will locate this topic

within the large PI literature; describe key PI conceptual distinctions and theories; and

present and critique qualitative and quantitative studies relevant to this topic. The PI

literature describes many factors that may contribute to low PI, including busy family

schedules, immigrant families’ lack of familiarity with American culture and school

systems, low levels of literacy or formal education as barriers to involvement or

homework help, language barriers, concerns about immigration status, lack of

transportation, unreliable channels of school/parent communication, parental lack of trust

in school staff, parental lack of social capital, limited time and training for school staff to

foster PI, and financial costs of initiating and sustaining PI activities. (Agronick et al.,

2009; Hoover-Dempsey et al., 2005; Lareau & Horvat, 1999; Payne & Kaba, 2001).

Topic Analysis

Parent involvement and student achievement. After reviewing the PI literature,

the researcher developed the flow chart on the following page in Figure 1 to illustrate the

pathway by which increasing PI is thought to improve student achievement and behavior

(SA).

12

Figure 2.1. Interventions to Increase PI and Improve SA.

The dissertation literature review will focus on the step from 1 to 2 in Figure 2.1,

and not on the more widely researched and debated step from 2 to 3. The literature on the

step from 2 to 3 contains two points of view. One position argues that increased PI is

associated with improved SA, and that there is preponderance of evidence showing that

increasing PI will result in increased SA (Henderson & Mapp, 2002; Henderson, Mapp,

Johnson, & Davies, 2007; Epstein et al., 2009; Gutman & Midgley, 2000; Simons-

Morton & Crump, 2003; Parcel & Dufur, 2001; Jeynes, 2005; Hill & Tyson, 2009). The

second position agrees that PI and SA are associated, but argues that the evidence base

for concluding that there is a causal relationship is weak (Agronick et al., 2009; Fan &

Chen, 2001; Mattingly et al., 2002). Although understanding the relationship between PI

and SA is of great importance, the debate is a moot point for educators of underachieving

students if it is not possible to bring about a transition from step 1 to step 2.

Parent involvement intervention scale. PI interventions may take place at

district, school, or classroom levels. PI practice and the PI literature have been strongly

1. Less than

optimal student

achievement

and behavior

(SA)

2. Increased PI

3. Improved

SA

District-wide Interventions to

Increase Parent Involvement (PI)

School-wide PI Interventions

Classroom-level

PI Interventions

13

influenced by the federal No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act of 2002. NCLB and Title 1

legislation supported broad-based PI initiatives and research, particularly at the district

and school levels. This historical focus is understandable: district and school level

interventions intend to reach the largest number of students and families, and a wide

menu of PI components will give parents choices, may engage more parents than any

single strategy, and may permit matching specific PI components with specific needs of

students and parents. At this point in history, the dominant PI paradigm is to provide a

comprehensive range of interventions at a district or school level. The leading school-

and district-level PI programs recommend the simultaneous use of multiple PI strategies

such as special events, volunteer opportunities, parent education, parent centers, and

dedicated outreach staff (Henderson et al., 2007; Epstein et al., 2009). However, these

large scale interventions present difficulties for both research and practice.

The simultaneous use of multiple interventions to achieve a common outcome

makes it difficult to determine the relative effectiveness of each individual intervention.

Agronick and colleagues (2009) state:

… there is no evaluation evidence on which practices are effective or on the

relative impact of different types of a single practice or combinations of practices.

… Schoolwide multicomponent programs require randomization of a relatively

large number of schools to treatment or comparison conditions, a costly

undertaking (pp. 8 & 23).

Large multi-component interventions have not been quantitatively evaluated either as a

whole, or, as Agronick and colleagues state, in part. A practical problem with district-

wide or school-wide interventions is that the financial cost and personnel time of these

14

interventions are so great that they dissuade low-resource districts and schools from

undertaking them. Recommendations by Henderson and colleagues (2007) include:

“Family Center is always open, … Home visits are made to every new family, … Parent

coordinator is available if families have questions or need help, … Resource center for

low-income families is housed in a portable classroom next to the school (pp. 15-16).”

Epstein and colleagues (2009) state:

At the district level, funds are needed to support the salaries of a director and

facilitators who help all schools develop their partnership programs and for

program costs (e.g., staff development and training workshops on school, family,

and community partnerships; parent coordinators or liaisons to serve as ATP

chairs or co-chairs) (p. 21).

Epstein and colleagues also recommend a labor-intensive advisory structure, including

on-going highly active committees for each of six major types of PI. Low-resource

districts cannot afford to initiate and sustain additional programs out of their normal

operating budgets. Additional organizational structures require staff time from staff who

are already stretched thin, and dedicated personnel and volunteer training and supervision

require financial costs for districts with already high student to teacher ratios. In low-

resource districts, the Epstein approach would require many people to work many 12-

hour days without compensation. This is not realistic.

The PI field needs a new perspective on the dominant paradigm that interventions

should be conducted on a large scale. The large scale interventions are prohibitively

expensive to evaluate, and too expensive for many districts to implement and sustain out

of regular operating budget funds. Utilizing the leadership theory of “small wins”

15

(Kouzes & Posner, 2007), educators in low-resource districts and schools may find it

more practical to attempt to initiate change in PI by implementing low-cost, highly

effective classroom-level interventions. From a research perspective, the identification of

an effective low-cost specific intervention to promote PI at the classroom level would

greatly simplify the task of designing and implementing a longitudinal study of the

hypothesis that PI promotes student achievement. Such studies would permit evaluation

of specific types of PI interventions to identify which types were most strongly associated

with student achievement. This study’s literature review will focus on research on

specific classroom-level interventions to increase PI, and not on the much wider topics of

school-level and school district-level interventions.

Parent involvement organizing conceptual distinctions. As described in the

first chapter, the most commonly used PI typology is the six categories defined by

Epstein and colleagues: (a) Parenting (educational expectations, supervising time use);

(b) Communicating (parent or school initiated contacts about academic performance); (c)

Supporting school (volunteering); (d) Learning at home (academic lessons, music

lessons, discussions about school); (e) Decision making (parent organization

involvement); and (f) Collaborating with community (museum visits, girl scouts)

(Epstein et al., 2009). The literature also distinguishes between at-home PI such as

discussing school activities and monitoring out of school activities, and at-school PI such

as contacts with school staff and attending school events (Ho Sui-Chu & Willms, 1996;

Trusty, 1999). This dissertation study used at-home parent/child interactive homework

assignments as part of an intervention to promote parent/teacher communication. The

Federal No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB, 2002) defines parent involvement as:

16

The participation of parents in regular, two-way, meaningful communication

involving students’ academic learning and other school activities. The

involvement includes ensuring that parents play an integral role in assisting their

child’s learning: that parents are encouraged to be actively involved in their

child’s education at school; that parents are full partners in their child’s education

and are included, as appropriate, in decision making and on advisory committees

to assist in the education of their child (Part A, Section 9101[32]).

While much of the PI literature, such as the handbooks of Epstein and colleagues and

Henderson and colleagues, tends to non-judgmentally promote all forms of PI, NCLB

prioritizes bidirectional communication and partnership. The proposed study will

evaluate an intervention to promote bidirectional communication and partnership.

Parent involvement theory. As described in Chapter 1, Hoover-Dempsey and

colleagues (2005) and Mapp (2003) present analyses of parent motivation for PI. Hoover-

Dempsey and colleagues propose a psychological theory to explain why parents become

involved. They argue that the main factors influencing PI at-school and at-home are

parental beliefs and perceptions concerning parent role, self-efficacy, invitations for

involvement, and available resources for involvement. Mapp argues that an additional

variable strongly promotes PI at-school: parents’ perception that school staff have

positive attitudes toward parents and their children. This researcher prepared Figures 2.2

and 2.3 below to represent these theoretical analyses.

17

Figure 2.2. Hoover-Dempsey Model for Parent Involvement.

Figure 2.3. Mapp Hypothesis on Parent Involvement at School.

As cited above, Hoover-Dempsey and colleagues acknowledge that their work is based

upon studies of involved parents, not uninvolved parents. Mapp presents the best

practices of a school that had at least some contact with 90% of its parents, but she did

not interview from the 10% of parents who were unengaged by these practices. Epstein et

al. (2009) state that their handbook will guide schools to engage all families, not just

those that are easy to reach. It is surely true that schools that have and use all the

resources Epstein and colleagues recommend will engage a large number of parents, but

no specific strategies are presented or evaluated for involving parents unengaged by

whatever level of planned PI activities are implemented. There is a discrepancy between

current PI research methods and the claims and goals of the PI literature. All PI advocates

state that since PI is associated with SA, engaging uninvolved parents of low-achieving

Parent Motivational Beliefs

Concerning Parental Role

Construction and Parental

Self-Efficacy

Parental Perceptions of

Invitations for Involvement

from School, Teacher, Child

Parent's Life Context:

Perceived Time, Energy,

Skills, and Knowledge

Parental Involvement at School and at Home

Parents’ Perception that School

Staff Respect Parents and Care

about their Children

Parent Involvement at

School

18

students should be a priority. However, the PI research literature is largely silent on the

evaluation of specific strategies to involve previously unengaged parents. There are no

research studies that attempt to measure pre-existing lack of PI, and evaluate the

effectiveness of an intervention to initiate PI, particularly within a low-resource, low-

income, minority, and immigrant community. This dissertation study utilized the

theoretical constructs described above to interview parents not known by school staff to

have at-school PI; identified these parents’ PI attitudes and practices; asked about their

barriers to PI; and asked their advice on overcoming these barriers.

School staff perceptions of parent involvement. Three qualitative studies

argued that school staff are likely to have unfairly negative views of PI among low-

income minority parents. Jackson and Remillard (2005) interviewed eight mothers and

two grandmother caretakers of low-income African-American elementary school

students. These parents were identified from at-school participation in parent events held

for parents whose children were participating in an academic enrichment program. They

found that these parents engaged in a wide range of at-home PI activities. This finding

was intended to counter the view among school staff that low-income, minority parents

who are not highly visible to school staff are uninvolved and are deficits or barriers to

their children’s education. Lareau and Horvat (1999) interviewed 12 White and 12

African-American parents of elementary school students with a focus on understanding

problems in at-school PI. Nine White parents were middle class and three were working

class. Among African-American parents, three were middle class, four were working

class, and five were poor. Due to a community history of racial segregation, many

African-American families approached the school system with distrust. These parents had

19

difficulty complying with the school staff’s expectation for an appropriately involved

parent, which is someone who is positive and supports the school staff. Parents who

expressed critical views in contacts with school staff were perceived as having negative

PI, even though the critical parents viewed their involvement as positive. The authors

argue that being perceived as having positive PI is a social and cultural capital asset for

parents, and enables these parents to advocate more effectively for their children. Lawson

(2003) interviewed 13 low-income African-American parents of elementary school

students. Six parents were highly involved at the school. Lawson spent a week of

knocking on doors and used the assistance of the school’s parent advocate to recruit

seven parents who did not have at-school PI and were willing to be interviewed. Lawson

found that all 13 parents had positive PI role construction. Many parents struggled with

poverty, and stated that keeping children safe in the community, providing food and

clothing, and getting their child to school were PI achievements. The parents strongly

wanted improvement in positive parent/teacher communication. Teachers in the school

tended to view an appropriately involved parent as one who is visible to the school and is

supportive of the school. Although all the parents regarded themselves as involved, the

teachers made a sharp distinction between involved and uninvolved parents. Lawson

concluded, “… teachers’ deficit orientations toward parents contribute to a fairly

systematic silencing of the strengths, struggles, and communitycentric worldviews

evident in the parents’ narratives” (p. 116). This researcher found echoes of parents in

these three studies in her parent interviews in Phase 1 of the dissertation study. A decided

difference is that these three studies focused on understanding “the problem” of parents

who are perceived as uninvolved or inappropriately involved by school staff. The

20

interviews in Phase 1 of the dissertation study were focused on laying the groundwork for

an intervention that would help address the problem of the lack of positive

communication between parents and teachers.

Parents who work long hours. An additional qualitative study interviewed

Chinese-American immigrant parents for whom working long hours was a barrier to PI

(Ji & Koblinsky, 2009). This type of parent is largely missing from the PI literature. For

example, a widely cited study by Muller (1995) used data concerning 8th

grade students

from the 1988 National Educational Longitudinal Study (NELS : 88) to find that mothers

employed part-time, as compared to mothers not employed or employed full-time, tended

to be in families with higher family incomes, greater parental education, greater

percentage of two-parent families, greater maternal involvement in their children’s

education, and children with higher 8th

grade mathematics test scores. NELS : 88 had

three categories for maternal employment status: 35 or more hours per week, part-time,

or not employed outside the home. The survey did not have a separate category to capture

parents who work very long hours. The study by Ji and Koblinsky is the single study

reporting on parents in this category. The authors interviewed 29 Chinese-American

recent immigrant parents in Washington, D.C., who primarily worked in restaurants and

hotels. The majority of study participants worked six days a week for more than eight

hours a day, and had family incomes under $20,000 per year, even though both parents

worked in 25 of the 29 families. Forty-one percent reported spending less than one hour

per day with their children, and 69% stated that demanding work schedules were barriers

to greater involvement in their children’s education. In the district in which this

dissertation study was conducted, there is a small but significant percentage of parents,

21

typically immigrants, and often the single parent in the family, who may work 60, 80, or

more hours a week at one, two, or three low-wage jobs. Some parents are home health

aides who may work five continuous days as live-in attendants at their employers’ homes,

and then return to their own homes. Students in these families are difficult to identify,

since they are often embarrassed to disclose their family circumstances. Teachers

reported that parents who work long hours were among the more difficult to engage in

this study’s Phase 2 intervention.

Quantitative evaluation of PI interventions. There are only two published

comparison group quantitative assessments of classroom-level PI interventions for

middle school students. In both studies, TIPS was the independent variable, and student

and parent reports of at-home PI was a dependent variable. Balli, Demo, and Wedman

(1998) reported a study in which a single 6th

grade math teacher distributed handouts

containing TIPS assignments to 74 White, middle class students that required students to

interact with a family member. One group of students received TIPS handouts with no

prompts to involve a family member, a second group received handouts with prompts to

involve a family member, and a third group received handouts that included the prompts,

requested family member comments on the assignment, and requested a parent signature

on the assignment sheet. Findings indicated that the second group had more family

involvement than the first, and the third group had more family involvement than the

second. The students were given 20 TIPS assignments over a 3-month period and had a

100% homework submission rate. Although the study by Balli and colleagues was

primarily quantitative, it is a mixed method study since it also included follow-up

collection of qualitative data. Families of all 74 students were asked to participate in

22

follow-up interviews, and 24 were interviewed by telephone. Interview notes were

examined for common themes: 16 of 24 said that time constraints made it a challenge to

assist their children with homework, 10 of 24 said that they had difficulty with the level

of math in the homework, and 16 of 24 appreciated having structured homework

assignments.

Van Voorhis (2003) conducted an intervention that used TIPS weekly interactive

science class homework assignments with 253 6th

and 8th

grade students. The study

population was 53% White, 36% African-American, and 11% other. Three teachers each

taught both TIPS and non-TIPS classes. Students received weekly TIPS assignments for

18 weeks and had a 74% homework submission rate. The study found improved family

involvement in homework and student achievement among 6th

and 8th

grade students

receiving TIPS assignments, in comparison to 6th

and 8th

grade students who received

equivalent assignments that did not request the assistance of a family member. In both of

these studies, the at-home PI of homework assistance was a PI dependent variable.

Neither study sought to obtain or measure teacher/parent bidirectional communication as

a PI dependent variable.

A study published in 2007 evaluated a classroom-level PI intervention for first

year high school students that was similar in scale and design to the above two studies

and to the intervention conducted in Phase 2 of this dissertation study, and was

implemented with a predominantly low-income minority population. Shirvani (2007a;

2007b) conducted a study in which 30 9th

grade algebra students in two classes were

given monitoring sheets twice weekly for 12 weeks to be signed by their parents. Each

sheet reported recent homework grades (30 assignments over the 12 weeks) and student

23

level of conduct and engagement in the classroom. In comparison to 22 students in two

control group classes who did not receive the monitoring sheets, intervention group

students had higher homework grades, higher scores on a math test at the end of the 12

weeks, and fewer conduct-related problems in the classroom. Among students with

overall course grades lower than 75 for the 12-week period, lower-performing

intervention group students had higher grades than lower-performing control group

students. The four classes were taught by the same teacher, and intervention/control class

assignments were randomly selected. If the student did not return a signed monitoring

sheet, the researcher (not the teacher) called the parent to provide the homework grade

and conduct and engagement information on the monitoring sheet. The study sample was

55% African-American, 35% Hispanic, and 10% White; and 90% qualified for

subsidized lunch. The independent variable was the use of the monitoring sheet to keep

parents informed of student homework grades and classroom behavior, and the dependent

variables were homework grades, exam scores, and classroom behavior.

Strengths and limitations of these quantitative studies. Balli and colleagues

and Von Voorhis compared differences between intervention and control parents in at-

home PI using student and parent reports. An advantage of this method is that student and

parent reports may be compared for corroboration. A disadvantage is that the outcome in

question was observed only by the family members. The study by Balli and colleagues

may not be generalizable to low-income, minority students, and the use of only one

teacher means that the study does not fully meet U.S. Department of Education criteria as

having an appropriate design to establish the intervention as “evidence-based” (U.S.

Department of Education, 2008). A limitation of the study conducted by Von Voorhis is

24

that school classes in this study were segregated by five levels of student ability:

inclusion, low-ability, average, honors, and gifted. The lowest inclusion and highest

gifted level classes were not included in the study. Consequently, caution should be used

in generalizing findings to schools that do not track students and have blended classes

that include lowest-achieving students. Shirvani used a form of at-school PI

(unidirectional communication of written information from the teacher to the parent) to

promote improvement in academic achievement and classroom behavior. Limitations of

this study are that it used only one teacher and had a small sample size. A strength is that

the intervention measured student conduct in the classroom.

The comprehensive literature review of Hill and Tyson (2009) on PI and

academic achievement among middle school students used explicitly defined inclusion

and exclusion criteria that were met by only 50 studies between 1985 and 2006. The large

majority of these were correlational studies; the only two peer-reviewed intervention

studies included were those of Balli and colleagues and Von Voorhis. Inclusion criteria

were: (a) the study used a measure of parental involvement and academic achievement

(which included homework grades); (b) the population studied was middle school

students; (c) the report included sufficient information to measure an effect size; and (d)

the study focused on a specific PI strategy. Studies were excluded if they demonstrated a

lack of overall face validity by not assessing PI as defined by prevailing theories. The

Phase 2 study in this dissertation met these criteria, and had certain strengths relative to

the studies of Balli and colleagues and Van Voorhis. The Phase 2 study was conducted in

an almost entirely minority middle school with untracked classes taught by three different

teachers that contained both regular and special education students. The study included a

25

measure of pre-existing at-school PI, and measured the effect of teacher outreach on the

outcome variables of parent/teacher bidirectional communication, as well as homework

submission rates and homework grades.

Summary and Conclusion

This dissertation study is designed to help fill three gaps in the literature: (a) an

absence of quantitative studies that evaluated whether PI interventions actually increase

PI; (b) with the exception of the aforementioned studies, there are few quantitative

evaluations of the effectiveness of classroom-level interventions to engage parents of

middle school students in at-school PI; and (c) a shortage of qualitative and quantitative

studies on interventions to engage previously uninvolved parents. The study also

addressed the practical question of evaluating a low-cost intervention to initiate

parent/teacher partnership.

26

Chapter 3: Research Design Methodology

General Perspective

The problem addressed by this dissertation research project is that although parent

involvement (PI) is associated with student educational achievement, many children who

most need PI support do not receive it. PI initiatives in low-resource, immigrant, minority

school districts often fail to engage a significant percentage of parents as partners in

working to improve their children’s education. The primary research question for this

study was: Can a low-cost intervention consisting of a focused teacher outreach effort

and the use of student/parent interactive homework assignments succeed at initiating

bidirectional parent/teacher communication with previously uninvolved parents of 8th

grade students in a largely immigrant, minority school district?

This dissertation study uses a mixed method approach. Phase 1 of the study is a

qualitative assessment of factors that may be reasons for lack of PI among parents of 8th

grade students in a low-income, minority school district. Phase 2 is a quantitative

evaluation of an intervention to initiate at-school PI among these parents. This study is

action research: parents in Phase 1 and teachers in Phase 2 both contributed to the

development of the Phase 2 intervention.

Phase 1 of the study interviewed parents to assess parent attitudes and practices

toward PI at-home and PI at-school, assessed the extent to which four theoretical

constructs in the PI literature were present among these parents, and used these data to

help develop the Phase 2 intervention to promote the PI at-home activity of helping with

27

homework and the PI at-school activity of teacher/parent bidirectional communication.

Three of the theoretical constructs – PI role construction, PI self-efficacy, and PI

invitations – are described in the work of Hoover-Dempsey and colleagues (2005). The

theoretical construct of parent perception of school staff as being caring and trustworthy

is described in Mapp (2003). The purposes of the qualitative approach in Phase 1 were to

assess the acceptability and feasibility of the intervention planned for Phase 2, and to

obtain information that would improve the effectiveness of this intervention.

In Phase 2, the researcher worked with three 8th

grade English teachers to plan

Teachers Involve Parents in Schoolwork (TIPS) homework assignments that require that

students in all classes and their parents work together to complete the assignment

(Epstein et al., 2009). For students in one randomly selected class for each teacher, the

TIPS assignments were a basis for a teacher outreach intervention to parents to obtain

phone conversations between teacher and parent on student academic achievement.

Hypotheses to be tested were: (a) A greater proportion of parents of intervention class

students will have had bidirectional communication with the teacher by the end of the

seven-week intervention period than parents of control class students will have had; (b) A

greater proportion of parents of intervention class students will have had positive contact

with the teacher by the end of the intervention period than parents of control class

students; (c) Intervention class students will complete more TIPS homework assignments

than control class students; and (d) Intervention class students will have higher

homework grades than control class students. This is a quasi-experimental design since

the study is randomized at the group level and outcomes are compared between subjects.

The independent variable in the hypothesis is the strategy of teacher outreach that will be

28

provided only for the intervention classes. The main dependent variable is the specific at-

school PI activity of teacher/parent bidirectional communication. The purposes of the

quantitative approach in Phase 2 were: (a) to help fill a gap in the literature on the

quantitative evaluation of whether PI interventions succeed at increasing PI, and (b) to

provide parents, teachers, schools and districts with evidence-based guidance on how to

improve PI among middle school students using a low-cost intervention.

Research Context

Both study phases were conducted at a middle school in lower Westchester

County, New York. The U.S. 2000 Census reported that 60% of the school district’s

68,000 residents are African-American, 29% are White, and 10% are Hispanic of any

race. The district occupies only four square miles, and the community has historically had

difficulty maintaining a tax base that is sufficient for its public services. Sixty-three

percent of its housing units are renter occupied. The district’s median household income

of $49,700 is half the median household income for Westchester County as a whole. The

district’s secondary schools do not have a positive reputation in the community, and

historically there has been a drop in district enrollment from 6th

grade to 7th

grade as

parents transfer children to private schools. Recent audits by the New York State

Department of Education identified numerous deficiencies in the district’s secondary

schools, and resulted in mandated programs to remediate these deficiencies. This is a

low-resource school district that has experienced repeated budget freezes and cuts, and

does not have the resources to implement and sustain PI programs that require substantial

funds and substantial use of school personnel time. The district receives grant funding for

special programs, but the programs typically end when the funding period ends.

29

Research Participants

Both study phases were conducted at the larger of the district’s two middle

schools. The demographic profiles of 8th

grade students at both middle schools are

presented in Table 3.1.

Table 3.1

District Middle School Student Population Demographic Data

_______________________________________________________________________

Characteristic School 1 School 2

_______________________________________________________________________

Total 8th

grade enrollment 214 349

African-American non-Hispanic 187 (87%) 249 (71%)

Hispanic 19 (9%) 68 (20%)

White non-Hispanic 8 (4%) 27 (8%)

Asian or other 0 (0%) 5 (1%)

Male 103 (48%) 161 (46%)

Female 111 (52%) 188 (54%)

Special Education 38 (18%) 74 (21%)

English Language Learner 5 (2%) 33 (9%)

Homeless 8 (4%) 15 (4%)

Average Daily Attendance (9/13/10 - 10/6/10) 95% 92%

_______________________________________________________________________

School classes are not tracked by student ability. Special Education students are

mainstreamed into regular classes with support. The majority of students are first or

second generation immigrants, predominantly from Caribbean and Latin American

nations. In the smaller school, 82% of 7th

and 8th

grade students receive free or reduced

30

price lunch. In the larger school, 70% of 7th

and 8th

grade students receive free or reduced

price lunch. Many students enter 9th

grade in the districts’ high schools academically and

socially unprepared for high school studies. In 2009-2010, the larger of the district’s two

high schools had 575 9th

graders and retained 258 (45%). The smaller high school had

244 9th

graders and retained 78 (32%). District 9th

grade enrollments are higher than

district 8th

grade enrollments because of 9th

grade retention from the previous year.

Phase 1 study participants. In March, 2010, the larger school provided the

researcher with a list of more than 300 8th

grade parents who were not known by school

teachers or counselors to have had at-school PI in the current school year. Forty of these

parents were randomly chosen to receive an IRB-approved letter inviting them to

participate in an interview on parent involvement. A $20 reimbursement was offered to

each interview participant. The objective was to conduct face-to-face audiotaped

interviews with 15 to 20 parents. Twenty-one interviews were conducted, and four of

these interviews failed to record. The responses of the parents in the four interviews that

failed to record were not materially different from the responses in the recorded

interviews. Data analysis was conducted using the 17 recorded interviews. Demographic

data were collected regarding parent gender, age, race, number of adults in the home,

number of children in the home, gender of child in the 8th

grade, and years of residence in

the community. Fifteen parents were African-American, one was Hispanic, and one was

White. Fourteen interviews were conducted with the student’s mother, one with the

grandmother, and two with both mother and father. Six of the 8th

grade children were

female and 11 were male. No family had more than three children in the home, and the

mean length of community residency was 19.4 years.

31

Phase 2 study participants. For Phase 2 of the study, the researcher worked with

the principal of the larger middle school to engage three 8th

grade English teachers to

participate in the project. In the summer of 2010, the researcher worked with these

English teachers to plan TIPS homework assignments to be administered during seven

consecutive weeks in November and December, 2010. In September, due to enrollment

changes in the middle schools and teacher seniority policies, one of the three original

teachers was transferred to the district’s other middle school, and was replaced by a

different teacher. This new teacher joined the project. The three teachers respectively

taught four, three, and two 8th

grade English classes. At the end of October, 2010, each

teacher had one class of students randomly chosen to receive the teacher-to-parent

outreach intervention. Students in the teachers’ other six classes did not receive the

teacher-to-parent outreach intervention. All classes in the study received one TIPS

homework assignment each week during November and December requiring that the

student and a parent work together to complete the assignment. Homework assignments

were the same in all classes. Included with the first assignment was a cover letter

explaining the purpose of the TIPS homework with a request that parents sign each

submitted assignment. The cover letter for the intervention classes included the statement

that the teacher intended to contact the parent or guardian to discuss the weekly

assignments.

A total of 192 students participated in the Phase 2 study. Table 3.2 presents

student population demographic data for gender and race/ethnicity.

32

Table 3.2

Parent Intervention Project Student Demographic Data

_______________________________________________________________________

Characteristic Intervention % Intervention Control % Control

_______________________________________________________________________

Total Number Students 61 131

Male 31 50.8 38 29.0

Female 30 49.2 93 71.0

Black 45 73.8 89 67.9

Hispanic 10 16.4 32 24.4

White 4 6.6 9 6.9

Asian 2 3.3 1 0.8

_______________________________________________________________________

There were 61 students in the three intervention classes and 131 students in the

six control group classes. The intervention group was evenly divided by gender, but the

control group was majority female. The control and intervention groups were similar in

race/ethnicity. Since the Phase 2 study was the evaluation of a classroom activity, it was

granted an IRB exemption from the requirement to obtain informed consent.

Instruments Used in Data Collection

The Phase 1 parent interview instrument is attached in Appendix A. Interviews

were semi-structured and organized around the four theoretical concepts of role

construction, self-efficacy, invitations, and perceptions of levels of care and respect

among school staff. As the instrument was developed for this study, its test-retest

reliability has not been measured. The instrument’s validity is guided by its use of four

33

theoretical constructs identified in the PI literature. All parents interviewed readily

understood these four constructs as aspects of PI in their day-to-day lives.

For Phase 2 data collection, the researcher worked with the English teachers to

prepare a data entry sheet for each study class that included student name, student gender,

student race/ethnicity, a code for the class teacher, a code for the specific class period,

seven data entry cells to indicate the completion of each weekly TIPS assignment and

grade, a data entry cell indicating whether the parent had any form of positive contact

with the teacher, and a data entry cell indicating whether the teacher at any time had a

conversation of five minutes or more with the parent concerning student academic

achievement. A sample data collection sheet is attached in Appendix B. The researcher

worked with school staff to prepare log sheets for all parent events and parent

organization meetings during September through October.

Procedures for Data Collection and Analysis

Phase 1 data collection and analysis. The interviews were conducted by the

researcher. With parental permission, each interview was audiotaped. The audiotapes

were used to transcribe parent answers to demographic and other categorical questions, as

well as significant comments. These abbreviated transcripts were reviewed to obtain

summary demographic data, identify proportions of parents with specific answers, and

identify common themes organized around the four theoretical constructs. This

information is summarized in Chapter 4 below, and was used to assist the implementation

of the intervention in Phase 2. This is basic qualitative analysis as described by Creswell

(2009). This summary of the researcher’s understanding of what the data mean is

supported by de-identified quotations from participants, and expresses different ways in

34

which participants understand PI. One advantage of this type of qualitative research is

that it uncovered a dramatic difference between school staff perception of PI and parent

perception of PI. School staff were asked to provide the researcher with a list of parents

who were not known to have had at-school involvement in the previous year. Parents

interviewed were randomly chosen from this list. However, nearly all parents interviewed

reported some form of at-school involvement, and in most cases discussed their at-school

involvement in some detail. The phenomenon of school staff underestimating PI is

mentioned frequently in the PI literature (Lareau & Horvat, 1999; Lawson, 2003; and

Jackson & Remillard, 2005). In many cases, apparently, the school’s teachers, principal,

and guidance counselors did not remember their contact with the parent. Interpretation of

Phase 1 data resulted in assigning different meanings to the Phase 2 intervention: instead

of “involving the uninvolved” and “creating at-school PI”, it was “promoting

parent/teacher partnership among parents not perceived by the school as involved” and

“creating more effective at-school PI.”

Phase 2 data collection and analysis. The researcher monitored completion of

the teachers’ data sheets from September through December. Teachers maintained logs of

each class in which they entered student gender, student race/ethnicity, grades for each of

the seven homework assignments, a yes/no box if the parent attended a parent night

event, a yes/no box if the teacher had any contact with the parent, and a yes/no box if the

teacher had a conversation of at least five minutes with the parent. The intervention

consisted of teacher effort to contact the parents of intervention class students by phone.

The purpose of the contact was to have a five minute or longer conversation with a parent

concerning the homework assignments and the student’s overall progress in the class.

35

Shorter conversations or conversations primarily on discipline or attendance problems

were not counted as meeting this definition. Each teacher was instructed to spend no

more than an average of three hours per week in the outreach effort.

The school held three events during the first two months of the school year to

which parents were invited. The district Parent Liaison supervised parent sign-in at each

event. At the end of the study in December, data from the sign-in sheets were used to

complete the yes/no box on the class logs if the parent attended at least one event.

Homework grading rubric. The teachers decided that if the student completed

the entire sheet correctly it would be graded a 10; completion of half the sheet would be

graded a 5, and no sheet submitted would be graded a 0. If the sheets were divided into

sections, then 2 points would be deducted for each incomplete section. Since there were

grades of 7 and 9 in the final data, the teachers in actual practice apparently gave partial

credit for some sections, instead of simply grading each section as 0 or 2. To conduct the

data analysis, homework assignment grades were assigned to one of three categories: not

submitted (grade = 0), partial credit (grade = between 3 and 8 clustering about 5), or full

credit (grade = 9 to 10).

Teacher log sheet data on student/race ethnicity were compared to student

registration records, which report the parent’s statement about student race/ethnicity. In

accordance with New York State policy, the parent’s statement is the race/ethnicity of

record, and this was used to correct teacher data for approximately 20 students. These

corrections increased the proportion of Hispanic students. At the end of the intervention

period, data were entered into an Excel data base with each subject assigned a unique

numerical identifier. The data base included a yes/no box indicating whether the student

36

was in a control group class or an intervention group class. Three control group students

and one intervention group student who were transferred out of their English classes

during the study period were deleted from the data set.

The outcome data are categorical. The teacher either had or did not have five

minute conversations with the parents, and either had or did not have any contact with the

parents. Students either did or did not submit homework assignments. Parents either

attended or did not attend a parent night event. Consequently, analyses of possible

significant differences in these data report the Mantel-Haenszel chi-square result, p-value,

and, where appropriate, phi coefficient. Student clustered grades were analyzed

categorically: not submitted, partial credit, or full credit. The analysis of student grade

data reports the chi-square test result for linear trend in proportions and p-value. Epi Info

Version 3.5.3, published and distributed by the Centers for Disease Control, was used to

conduct chi-square tests for the binary categorical outcome variables of parent/teacher

five minute conversation, any parent/teacher contact, homework submitted, and parent

attendance at a parent night at the school. Epi Info was used to conduct chi-square tests

for linear trend of proportions for homework grade outcomes of not submitted, partial

credit, and full credit.

In March, 2011, the researcher conducted debriefing interviews with the English

teachers to obtain their overall assessment of the effectiveness of the TIPS assignments

and the parent outreach intervention. Results of these debriefing interviews are described

in Chapter 5.

37

Chapter 4: Results

Research Questions

The problem addressed by the dissertation study is that although parent

involvement (PI) is associated with student educational achievement, many children who

most need effective PI support do not receive it. PI initiatives in low-resource, immigrant,

minority school districts often fail to engage a significant percentage of parents as

partners in working to improve their children’s education. The primary research question

for this study was: Can a low-cost intervention consisting of a focused teacher outreach

effort and the use of student/parent interactive homework assignments succeed at

initiating bidirectional parent/teacher communication with previously uninvolved parents

of 8th

grade students in a largely immigrant, minority school district?

The study used a mixed method approach. Phase 1 of the study was a qualitative

assessment of factors that may be reasons for lack of PI among parents of 8th

grade

students in a low-income, minority school district. Phase 2 was a quantitative evaluation

of an intervention to initiate at-school PI among these parents.

Phase 1 Data Analysis and Findings

Phase 1 of the study interviewed 17 parents to assess parent attitudes and

practices toward PI at-home and PI at-school, assessed the extent to which four

theoretical constructs in the PI literature were present among these parents, and used

these data to help implement the Phase 2 intervention to promote the PI at-home activity

of helping with homework and the PI at-school activity of teacher/parent bidirectional

38

communication. Three of the theoretical constructs – PI role construction, PI self-

efficacy, and PI invitations – are described in the work of Hoover-Dempsey and

colleagues (2005). The theoretical construct of parent perception of school staff as being

caring and trustworthy is described in Mapp (2003). Phase 1 hypotheses were that

homework assignments that required parent assistance would be acceptable and feasible

and that outreach by the teacher to have bidirectional communication with the parents

would be acceptable and feasible. These hypotheses were confirmed. The Phase 1

interviews also succeeded in obtaining information that guided implementation of the

intervention.

Although school staff stated that the parents on the list provided to the researcher

were not known to have had at-school PI in the previous year, nearly all parents

interviewed reported some form of at-school PI, and a majority reported bidirectional

communication with at least one teacher. The phenomenon of school staff

underestimating PI is mentioned frequently in the PI literature (Lareau & Horvat, 1999;

Lawson, 2003; and Jackson & Remillard, 2005). All parents reported a willingness to

have bidirectional communication with the teacher. A majority of parents reported

regularly or occasionally helping with homework. Several of those who did not help with

homework expressed frustration that their child did not bring any home, either because

the child managed to complete homework at school, or because (it was suspected) the

child did not complete homework assignments.

Interview themes. This section discusses the four theoretical constructs as they

emerged during the interviews.

39

Role Construction. All parents interviewed regarded involvement in their child’s

education as something that they should do, and that all parents should do. All parents

expressed a willingness to have telephone conversations with the teachers. Several

parents said that the child needs to see evidence of PI to believe that the parent cares

about school achievement. The majority of parents had some form of at-school PI.

Although the school staff told the researcher that the parents on the list were not known

to have had at-school PI in the past year, three-fourths reported talking to a teacher in the

past year by phone or in-person, and three-fourths reported attendance at some at-school

event in the past year. The majority of parents had some form of at-home PI. Two-thirds

reported working with their child on homework in the past year. One-third included as

education at home advising their child on attitude and behavior toward teachers and other

students; one-third reported encouraging education by providing rewards for doing well

in school; two said that participation in church and church-sponsored activities were

educational experiences; and one told her child to put school before games and took her

child to “free stuff” in the community such as the library or the park. Two parents

mentioned the adolescent need for increased autonomy as a reason why their at-home

involvement was less than it had been when the children were younger.

One parent volunteered that as part of her educational involvement she tells her

son that, “For him to be a Black man he has to be ten steps ahead of everyone else.” This

is an example of a PI role construction described by Sanders (1997), who interviewed 28

African-American 8th

graders and found:

… evidence that despite racial discrimination, many African Americans possess

an achievement ethos that demands commitment to excellence for both individual

40

and collective mobility, … which allows African-American students to respond to

racial discrimination in ways that are conducive rather than detrimental to

academic success. … These students indicated that they had gained an awareness

of racial discrimination and racism through their observations of and

conversations with their parents, who either explicitly or implicitly transmitted

their racial attitudes and coping strategies to their children through positive racial

/ ethnic socialization (pp. 85 & 90).

Self-efficacy. In terms of parental self-efficacy for homework, eight parents

reported that they had difficulty with some subjects. One of these parents has another

adult in the home help with math. Six reported other problems related to homework, such

as a child with poor grades never bringing home any homework or the child’s inability to

bring reference books home. In terms of self-efficacy for at-school PI, a majority said that

they were comfortable asking teachers and staff questions. Parents with limited or no

involvement at school cited factors such as not being able to drive, lack of proximity to

the school, difficulty in attending events between 4 pm and 8 pm, having two jobs,

notices about events that arrive after the event has occurred, and involvement at a

sibling’s school. Several parents said that school events are sometimes well organized,

and sometimes not – which results in the event not being a good use of their time, and

discourages them from attending future events. Eleven parents said that they were

pressed for time to be involved, although they still made the effort to be involved.

Eight parents emphasized that more parent/teacher communication was needed,

and that it should be as early as possible if there are problems with the student’s work or

behavior. These parents felt that they could be more effective in addressing their

41

children’s needs, if awareness of these needs (such as lack of effort in the classroom) was

communicated to them in a more timely way. One parent said that she regularly contacts

teachers by phone or email, and that they appreciate her checking up, although they do

not call her.

Invitations. Approximately half the parents reported invitations for involvement

or attendance at an event from the school, from a teacher, or from the child. A number of

parents said that they did not recall receiving school invitations. There did not seem to be

a consistent pattern of invitations from the children or from the teachers. Parents stated

that some teachers issue written or verbal invitations, and other teachers do not. A few

parents indicated that they were only contacted by a teacher when the child had a

behavior problem. Although all parents should receive some invitations from the school,

parent reports of these invitations are inconsistent. Either these invitations were not

received by the parents, or the parents did not remember them.

Care, Respect, Trust. More than half the parents interviewed indicated that school

staff were adequate or better in caring for children, being trustworthy in terms providing

a safe and effective educational environment, and in respecting parents and listening to

parents. Some parents spoke of appreciating a teacher who had an understanding of their

children as individuals. However, one-third said that some teachers and staff just go

through the motions to collect the paycheck. “Some care and some don’t,” was a common

refrain. Several said that some teachers and staff were lacking in respect for parents and a

willingness to listen to parents and to children. Several stated that in their personal

experience, they had received respect and a willingness to listen, but indicated that this

may not be true of all parents. One-third of the parents were very critical. The critical

42

parents often said that school staff did not promptly identify and respond to children’s

problems. Three parents said that PI is necessary because the school cannot be relied

upon to do things right. Two parents said that school staff are consistently negative about

their child.

Four parents strongly urged improved training for children with special

educational needs, including more timely assessments and more appropriate class

placements. These parents had had negative experiences in this respect, and felt that

school staff made insufficient efforts to properly recognize and respond to children’s

special needs. Six parents said the school and community are deficient in providing

afterschool activities, and one urged career counseling. These parents felt that the school

should do more to support their children’s education and healthy development, and as a

result they tended to perceive the school as uncaring and untrustworthy.

Summary of Phase 1 Results

The parents interviewed indicated that they would welcome increased

opportunities for at-home PI such as parent/child interactive homework assignments; and

would welcome increased bidirectional communication with their child’s teachers early

in the school year. The parents interviewed had positive role constructions for PI. Many

parents identified barriers and issues that limited their self-efficacy to assist with their

children’s education. Not all parents reported consistent invitations to assist with their

children’s education, and different parents gave a range of positive and negative

responses about their perceptions of the school staff in terms of trust, care, and respect for

parents.

43

Certain conclusions were drawn for the purpose of guiding the implementation

intervention used in Phase 2. The teachers were informed that the two main hypotheses of

Phase 1 were confirmed so that they would conduct the intervention with enthusiasm and

confidence. Parents wanted the opportunity to assist with homework, particularly if the

assignments could be given out with sufficient completion time so that the parents could

fit in the homework help session at their convenience. The intervention asked that

teachers move out of their comfort zone: they were asked to be active rather than passive

in engaging parents in bidirectional communication. The finding that all parents wanted

this contact was reported to the teachers to help overcome any reluctance. The teachers

were told that parents appreciated a teacher who could discuss their child as an

individual. Hoover-Dempsey and colleagues hypothesized that teachers would be more

effective at increasing PI if they had positive beliefs about the efficacy of specific PI

strategies (2002). TIPS was presented as an effective strategy for increasing the at-home

PI of helping with homework. Although Hoover-Dempsey and colleagues do not discuss

a concept of “parent invitation to the teacher” (as opposed to child, teacher, or school

invitation to the parent), the Phase 1 study was used to create a sense that parents were

inviting outreach from teachers for bidirectional communication.

Phase 2 Data Analysis and Findings

The main hypothesis to be tested was that: (a) the teacher would have a bi-

directional conversation of at least five minutes duration with a greater proportion of

intervention class parents than with control class parents. A major review of the parent

involvement literature (Agronick et al., 2009) pointed out that no studies have been

conducted to determine if outreach to parents actually results in greater parent

44

involvement. This study proposed to determine if teacher outreach would increase a

specific form of parent involvement: parent bidirectional communication with the child’s

teacher.

Additional hypotheses to be tested were that: (b) a greater proportion of

intervention class parents would have some type of contact with the teacher (either the

five minute phone conversation or any other contact, such as a conversation of less than

five minutes by phone or in person at a parent night event); (c) intervention class students

would submit a greater proportion of their homework assignments; and (d) intervention

class students would have higher grades on the homework assignments.

Table 4.1 presents the data for the main hypothesis that the teacher would have a

bi-directional conversation of at least five minutes with a greater proportion of

intervention class parents than with control class parents.

Table 4.1

Parent/Teacher Bidirectional Communication

____________________________________________________________________

Teacher 5-Minute No Teacher 5-Minute

Group Conversation with Parent Conversation with Parent Total

____________________________________________________________________

Intervention 55 6 61

Control 33 98 131

Total 88 104 192

____________________________________________________________________

The main hypothesis was confirmed: the difference between the proportions of

intervention class parents and control class parents (90.2% vs. 25.2%) who had bi-

45

directional conversations with the teacher was significant (Mantel-Haenszel chi-square

result = 70.40 (df = 1), p < .001, phi coefficient = .607).

Table 4.2 presents the data for the second hypothesis: a greater proportion of

intervention class parents would have some type of contact with the teacher than control

class parents.

Table 4.2

Parent/Teacher Any Contact

_____________________________________________________________________

Parent/Teacher Parent/Teacher

Group Any Contact No Contact Total

_____________________________________________________________________

Intervention 58 3 61

Control 60 71 131

Total 118 74 192

_____________________________________________________________________

The second hypothesis was confirmed: the difference between the proportions of

intervention class parents and control class parents (95.1% vs. 45.8%) who had any

contact with the teacher was significant (Mantel-Haenszel chi-square result = 42.45 (df =

1), p < .001, phi coefficient = .471).

Table 4.3 presents the data for the third hypothesis: intervention class students

would submit a greater proportion of their homework assignments.

46

Table 4.3

Homework Assignment Submissions

___________________________________________________________________

HW Assignment HW Assignment

Group Submitted Not Submitted Total

___________________________________________________________________

Intervention 272 155 427

Control 410 507 917

Total 682 662 1,344

___________________________________________________________________

The third hypothesis was confirmed: the difference between the proportions of

homework assignments submitted by intervention class students and by control class

students (63.7% vs. 44.7%) who submitted their homework assignments was significant

(Mantel-Haenszel chi-square result = 42.0 (df = 1), p < .001, phi coefficient = .177).

Table 4.4 presents the data for the fourth hypothesis: intervention class students

would have higher grades on their homework assignments.

The fourth hypothesis was confirmed: intervention class students had higher

homework grades than control class students (chi-square test for linear trend in

proportions = 62.96 (df = 2), p < .001). The chi-square test for linear trend in proportions

was also conducted for both male students and female students. Male intervention

students had higher grades than male control students (chi-square = 9.10 (df = 2), p =

.003), and female intervention students had higher grades than female control students

(chi-square = 32.75 (df = 2), p < .001).

47

Table 4.4

Homework Assignment Grades

______________________________________________________________________

Not Partial Full

Group Submitted Credit Credit Total

______________________________________________________________________

All Intervention 155 88 184 427

All Control 507 93 317 917

Male Intervention 99 53 65 217

Male Control 165 39 61 265

Female Intervention 56 35 119 210

Female Control 342 53 257 652

______________________________________________________________________

Table 4.5 presents data comparing attendance at parent night events for

intervention and control class parents.

Table 4.5

Parent Night Attendance

______________________________________________________________________

Attended Did Not Attend

Group a Parent Night a Parent Night Total

______________________________________________________________________

Intervention 23 38 61

Control 41 90 131

Total 64 128 192

______________________________________________________________________

48

The difference in proportions in parent night attendance early in the school year

for intervention class parents and control group parents (37.7% vs. 31.3%) was not

significant (Mantel-Haenszel chi-square result = 0.76 (df = 1), p = 0.38).

Summary of Phase 2 Results

The four hypotheses were confirmed: the intervention had a positive effect on

parent/teacher bidirectional communication, any contact between parents and teachers,

homework submissions, and homework grades. The two groups of parents did not differ

on the independently measured parent involvement variable of attendance at a school

parent night.

49

Chapter 5: Discussion

Introduction

The problem addressed by the dissertation study is that although parent

involvement (PI) is associated with student educational achievement, many children who

most need effective PI support do not receive it. The primary research question for this

study was: Can a low-cost intervention consisting of a focused teacher outreach effort

and the use of student/parent interactive homework assignments succeed at initiating

bidirectional parent/teacher communication with previously uninvolved parents of 8th

grade students in a largely immigrant, minority school district?

This chapter will discuss the significance of the findings presented in the previous

chapter for parents, teachers, principals, district administrators, and educational

researchers. Limitations of the study will be presented. Recommendations will be made

for actions that can be taken at the family, classroom, school, and district levels, as well

as suggestions for further research.

The study used a mixed methods approach. Phase 1 of the study used audiotaped

parent interviews to conduct a qualitative assessment of factors that may be reasons for

lack of PI among parents of 8th

grade students in a low-income, minority school district.

Phase 2 was a quantitative evaluation of an intervention randomized at the classroom

level to initiate bidirectional parent/teacher communication PI among parents of these 8th

grade students. The objective of the study was to evaluate four hypotheses concerning the

Phase 2 intervention: (a) The teacher would have a bi-directional conversation of at least

50

five minutes duration with a greater proportion of intervention class parents than with

control class parents; (b) A greater proportion of intervention class parents would have

some type of contact with the teacher; (c) Intervention class students would submit a

greater percentage of their homework assignments; and (d) Intervention class students

would have higher grades on the homework assignments.

Implication of Findings

Phase 1 findings. Many students at this middle school are perceived by school

staff as having uninvolved parents. Phase 1 of the study provided evidence that the

parents of many of these students are involved both at home and at school. Although it is

possible that some or all of the 18 parents who did not respond to the request for

interviews are truly uninvolved, the parents who were interviewed all take active steps to

assist their children’s educational progress. All parents interviewed had a positive role

construction for PI. Although Hoover-Dempsey and colleagues (2005) suggest that some

parents may need education on PI role construction, the experience of this study

suggested that role construction education may be desirable for school staff. One of the

three teachers initially needed to be encouraged to initiate bidirectional communication

with parents. Existing role construction for many school staff members includes the

belief, “Our role is to send letters inviting parents to events. If the parents respond, we

will provide bidirectional communication.” This is a role construction that leads to a low

level of perceived at-school PI. Of the parents interviewed in Phase 1 who had had

positive bidirectional communication with their children’s teachers, the communication

was nearly always initiated by the parent.

51

Parents in Phase 1 often described their PI self-efficacy as being constrained by a

range of inhibiting factors: difficulty with subject matter in assisting with homework,

children not bringing homework to home, lack of reference materials, transportation or

scheduling conflicts for attendance at school events, poor information about school parent

events, poorly organized school parent events, lack of time and energy due to other

responsibilities, and lack of timely information about student problems at school that

need a parental response. The Phase 2 intervention showed that for many parents these

barriers to PI may be overcome by TIPS assignments, which do not require reference

materials or a high level of subject matter knowledge, and by teacher initiated phone calls

that take place when a parent has available time. School personnel can be more effective

at responding to parental needs for PI self-efficacy.

The school mails invitations for PI at-school a number of times each year, and

also sends them home with the children. Yet many parents said that they did not recall

receiving school invitations. It is possible that these parents are underestimating school

efforts at PI just as school personnel underestimate parental efforts at PI. School

personnel apparently remember parents who make an impression. Parents may need

invitations that make a stronger impression, such as homework assignments requiring

their help and signature and phone conversations with teachers. Phase 2 of the study used

the expressed willingness of Phase 1 parents for bidirectional communication as an

invitation for teachers to initiate contact.

The study was conducted in a school district with a history of distrust by many

parents and community members. One-third of Phase 1 parents were highly critical of the

school, and a number of the other parents volunteered that they knew parents who had

52

had “bad experiences”. A purpose of the Mapp study (2003) was to identify best PI

practices in a high functioning elementary school that served a minority, low-income

population. Her conclusion was that despite the school’s many PI activities, the strongest

factor promoting PI was the parent’s perceptions of the school staff as caring, respectful,

and trustworthy. Although the limited size and scope of this dissertation project

prevented pre- and post-measurement of parent and school staff attitudes, a goal was to

design an intervention that would promote more positive attitudes between parents and

school staff. The TIPS assignments and the teacher/parent dialogues were intended to

provide the parent with a constructive experience with the school, and to provide teachers

with positive experiences with the parents. Parents interviewed in Phase 1 made it clear

that the teacher’s understanding of the student as an individual is a factor that promotes

perceptions of the teacher as caring and trustworthy.

Phase 2 findings. As predicted by the four hypotheses, the intervention had a

positive effect on promoting parent/teacher bidirectional communication, any form of

parent/teacher contact, student homework submissions, and student homework grades.

This is the first study to actually measure if a PI promotion intervention succeeds in

increasing PI. Phase 2 confirmed the Phase 1 statement by parents that they would

welcome greater communication with their child’s teacher.

The literature on TIPS (Epstein, 2009) is largely written by TIPS advocates, and

much of it is based on districts with higher socioeconomic status (Balli, Demo, &

Wedman, 1998; Von Voorhis, 2003) than this researcher’s district. The dissertation study

was in effect an independent study of TIPS’ feasibility and acceptability, and

TIPS was found to be feasible and acceptable. Phase 1 changed the meaning of the study

53

from “involving the uninvolved” to “involving the perceived uninvolved”. Phase 2 did

succeed in involving the perceived uninvolved. The difference in attendance at parent

nights was not significantly different between intervention and control group parents, yet

the teacher outreach engaged 90% of intervention group parents in the at-school PI of

parent/teacher bidirectional conversation.

Homework submission rates were 63.7% for all TIPS assignments among

intervention class students and 44.7% for all TIPS assignments among control class

students. These are much less than what one would hope, although they are not unusual

for homework assignments at this grade level in this district. Eighty-four and nine-tenths

percent of all students completed at least one TIPS assignment. This dissertation was

about the evaluation of an intervention to promote parent/teacher bidirectional

communication, and used TIPS as a means to achieve this goal. However, if the

intervention were to be used as a regular practice, it would be desirable to identify ways

to increase homework submissions. A possible factor for the low overall rates and for the

15% who completed no assignments is that some students apparently do no homework

for any classes. Altering this ingrained behavior may require a special intervention. A

second possibility may be related to the 10% of parents that teachers were unable to reach

to engage in conversations. Some of these cases involved recent changes in phone

numbers, or parents not having access to a phone on the job. In this community, there are

immigrant parents who work two full-time low-paying jobs or work out of the home at a

low-paying job continuously for five days at a time. Parents in these types of situations

were more difficult for the teachers to engage, and may be more difficult for the student

to engage in homework help. Students were informed of the opportunity to work on the

54

TIPS assignments with after-school tutors, and a few did this. However, some students

are apparently unwilling to take actions that might disclose stressful situations at home.

The initiation of the intervention was delayed so that the independent measure of

at-school PI of parent attendance at parent nights could be obtained. Teachers stated that

they would have liked to have started TIPS at the beginning of the school term, and

perhaps that change would improve homework submissions. (Parents were not assessed

on when they would have liked the intervention to start. However, parents in Phase 1

indicated that they would like to develop a dialogue with the teacher as early in the

school year as possible.) Teachers selected TIPS assignments from the TIPS CD for 8th

grade English that were closest to their curriculum (Van Voorhis & Epstein, 2002).

Perhaps with more experience, they could select, adapt, or develop higher interest TIPS

assignments.

Phase 2 had a number of positive unanticipated results: Many parents had

multiple conversations with the teacher, and continued to have conversations after the

seven-week study period ended. The teachers continued to use TIPS assignments after the

study period ended. Teachers reported that, “Parents we had never seen before” attended

parent night events at the beginning of the spring term, and the parents and teachers were

able to match faces with voices. Some parents in the control group or parents of students

in other grades heard about the phone calls, and asked school administrators why they

had not received the calls. A response that might be anticipated, but was nonetheless

gratifying, is that at the beginning of the intervention all teachers remarked, “I’m talking

to parents I never talked to before.”

55

A low-cost intervention to increase PI is feasible, and will be welcomed by

teachers and parents. The intervention’s ability to increase the percentage of homework

submissions is a positive sign that it can promote the ultimate goal of improving student

achievement.

Limitations

Phase 1 Study Limitations. School staff were asked to provide a list of parents

who were not known to have had at-school involvement in the previous year. However,

nearly all parents interviewed reported some form of at-school involvement, and in most

cases discussed their involvement in some detail. The inaccurate identification of

uninvolved parents affected the study’s ability to identify and interview truly uninvolved

parents. Forty parents were sent invitations to participate in the interviews. In one case

the parent and family had moved out of the community at the time the letter was mailed.

Twenty-one of the 39 remaining parents were interviewed. Four interviews failed to

record, but the content of the unrecorded interviews was not noticeably different from the

content of the recorded interviews. It is possible that the sample of 21 is unrepresentative,

and that the remaining 18 parents include parents who are truly uninvolved.

Of 17 parents with recorded interviews, eleven had male children who were 8th

graders and six had female 8th graders, which raises the possibility that the interviews are

more reflective of PI with male children than with female children. However, interview

data showed that parents of children of both genders raised similar concerns.

None of the families interviewed reported more than three children in the home. It

is possible that parents with a greater number of children had greater difficulty

participating in the interviews.

56

Among the 17 parents interviewed, 15 were Black, one was White, and one was

Hispanic. While this is fairly representative of the distribution of the school’s student

population, it suggests that future qualitative studies might attempt to increase

representation among minorities within the community.

The mean length of parent residency in the community was 19.4 years among

parents who were interviewed, with the four newest families having three, five, six, and

nine years residence in the community. The study intended to capture a representative

range of parents, but did not interview parents who were new to the community. It is

possible that longer-term community residents are more comfortable with at-school PI,

such as participation in Phase 1 of the study. Future studies may wish to attempt to

increase representation among parents who have lived in the community for two years or

less.

The interviews were conducted by the researcher, who is a well-known senior

administrator in the district office. This may have affected the interviewees’ responses,

although estimating the effect is not straightforward. Some possible biases are toward

positive interview content. Some parents may have given positive answers in the attempt

to please the interviewer or to avoid conflict. Other factors may have biased the interview

toward negative content. Some parents used the interview as an opportunity to express

specific grievances or make requests for assistance with specific problems. The

opportunity to do so may have had an effect on encouraging parents with these concerns

to participate in the project. The researcher desired positive responses concerning parent

willingness to provide homework assistance and to communicate with teachers, and this

57

may have biased responses in those directions. An additional limitation is that use of a

single interviewer prevented comparisons that might have identified an interviewer bias.

Phase 2 Study Limitations. The study originally planned to have three teachers

who each had five 8th

grade classes, with one class randomly selected for the phone

outreach intervention. However, due to reduced enrollments, the three teachers had four,

three, and two 8th

grade classes respectively. One of three teachers who had participated

in planning sessions over the summer was transferred to another school, and replaced by

the teacher who taught the two 8th

grade classes. Although this reduced the total size of

the control group, the study was intentionally designed with more participants than would

be needed to detect an intervention effect. A significant effect was detected for all four

hypotheses.

A second limitation is that the teachers planned on using the following scoring

rubric: if the student completed the entire sheet correctly it would be a 10; completion of

half the sheet would be 5, and no sheet would be 0. If the sheets were divided into

sections, then 2 points would be deducted for each incomplete section. In retrospect, this

was a flawed rubric from a statistical standpoint. The resulting data would neither be

smoothly continuous nor grouped into clearly defined discrete categories (such as

pass/fail, or A, B, C, D, F). In their actual grading, the teachers deviated from the planned

rubric to assign partial credit for some sections. As a result, there were a great many

zeros, and grades ranging from 3 to 10. To conduct the data analysis, homework grades

were assigned to one of three categories: not submitted (grade = 0), partially completed

(grade = 3 to 8), or completed (grade = 9 to 10). Since the teachers gave continuous

grades in actual practice, the original rubric might have accommodated this type of scale.

58

The data analysis used a scale that did closely match the original intent of the rubric with

“not submitted, partially complete, and complete” replaced by “not submitted, partially

complete, and complete or nearly complete”.

Teachers entered data on their own performance in terms of conversing with the

parent for at least five minutes on the TIPS assignments and student academic progress.

Self-reports are subject to bias. It would have been a stronger study to have recorded the

conversations and had an independent rater measure the length and assess the content.

The intent of the dissertation was to design and evaluate a single classroom-level

intervention that would have a positive effect on PI. However, Phase 1 interviews

indicated that parents may need consistently positive experiences with all school

personnel to have positive beliefs concerning self-efficacy, invitations, and perceptions of

school staff as caring and respectful. The high resource, high expense PI interventions at

school-wide or district-wide levels may be more likely to result in consistently positive

experiences than single classroom-level interventions with a single teacher.

The study was conducted with 8th

grade English class students in a predominantly

minority, low-income school district. Results may be different for older or younger

students and for students from a different socio-economic background. Results may also

vary by subject matter. It may be more challenging to design successful TIPS

assignments in math or science.

A delimitation imposed by the researcher is that the Phase 2 intervention did not

begin until midway through the fall term. Had the intervention begun in September, it is

quite possible that more parents in both groups would have attended the parent nights (to

ask about the assignments) and had 5-minute conversations with the teacher. This would

59

have reduced the effect size difference between the two groups. A second delimitation is

that the intervention was conducted for a seven-week period. Studies of TIPS

administered the assignments over a longer period of time and found modest

improvements in student achievement as measured by student grades or raters’

assessments of writing samples (Van Voorhis, 2003; Epstein, Simon, & Salinas, 1997).

This was not attempted in the present study because the intervention to achieve

bidirectional communication was short in duration and would be unlikely to produce a

measurable improvement in marking period grades or test scores.

Although the intervention obtained positive results, 10% of parents (a total of 6)

in the intervention did have bidirectional communication with the teacher and 15% of the

students (a total of 29) did not submit any TIPS assignments. In retrospect, it would have

been desirable to have had an additional intervention component so that a more intensive

effort might be made in these situations at the four or five week mark.

Recommendations

The guidelines for this section ask for actions that should be taken by

organizations and policymakers based upon study findings. However, individual parents

and parent groups could take the action of advocating for TIPS assignments and teacher-

initiated phone calls. Except possibly for home schooling, PI is not something that exists

by itself. PI is dependent upon real and perceived relationships that parents and school

staff have with each other. Parents might improve opportunities for PI simply by making

their desires for more effective at-home and at-school PI known to school and district

staff.

60

Schools and school districts with perceived lack of PI could change “business as

usual” by implementing the Phase 2 intervention. From a practical perspective, it may be

too labor intensive for teachers to contact more than one class of parents, at least over a

period of a few weeks. However, the telephone outreach could be staggered over the

course of the school year. An interesting possibility would be to have all 6th

grade

teachers in one subject matter have their class loads be reduced by one class so that they

could contact all their parents during the school year, and then provide the intervention

with a reduced load in the 7th

grade for a different subject matter, and so on.

Suggestions for research are for studies that evaluate variations on the grade level,

subject matter, and duration of the intervention. The teacher who had only two 8th grade

classes also on her own initiative used 7th

grade TIPS exercises with her 7th

grade English

classes, and reported a good response. (This cannot be reported upon in detail because 7th

graders were not included in the IRB application.) It is possible that the intervention may

have a more positive effect if begun in an earlier grade. Studies of variations on the

intervention should seek to improve homework submission rates. Such studies might also

seek to improve the effectiveness of the phone calls, perhaps by developing checklists of

key points for the teacher to cover. The intervention could be supplemented by the

monitoring sheets sent home to parents used by Shirvani (2007a; 2007b), and it is

possible that this combined intervention would yield a stronger effect than either

intervention alone. Bearing in mind that engagement may be most challenging with

lowest income and least educated parents, future studies of parent involvement may wish

to study engagement methods that use email and social media.

61

The significance of this study is that it demonstrates that it is possible to measure

a positive parent involvement effect introduced by a targeted parent involvement

intervention that also has a positive academic outcome of increasing the rate of

homework submissions. Aside from the practice-level value of this finding, it bears upon

a major debate in the PI literature concerning the nature of the relationship between PI

and student achievement. One position argues that increased PI is associated with

improved SA, and that there is preponderance of evidence showing that increasing PI will

result in an increased SA (Henderson & Mapp, 2002; Henderson, Mapp, Johnson, &

Davies, 2007; Epstein et al., 2009; Gutman & Midgley, 2000; Simons-Morton & Crump,

2003; Parcel & Dufur, 2001; Jeynes, 2005; Hill & Tyson, 2009). The second position

agrees that PI and SA are associated, but argues that the evidence base for concluding

that there is a causal relationship is weak (Agronick et al., 2009; Fan & Chen, 2001;

Mattingly et al., 2002). This debate concerns the interpretation of studies finding that PI

and student achievement are correlated. Longitudinal prospective studies with

comparison groups have not been conducted to test the causal hypothesis. The

intervention evaluated in Phase 2 is low-cost and resulted in significant positive changes

in student, parent, and teacher behavior. An evaluation of this intervention over a longer

period of time could measure changes in student achievement on standardized

examinations, and also measure student behavior to see if improved student behavior is

associated with improved PI. If such changes are positive and significant, that might

provide evidence for the hypothesis of a causal relationship, and might justify a structural

change such as reduced class loads for teachers conducting the telephone outreach

intervention. As a candidate for an intervention to be used for research on a wider scale

62

and longer duration, it should be noted that the Phase 2 intervention was accepted by

district senior administrators, the school principal, the teachers, and the parents because it

provided a beneficial experience for students and parents in both the intervention and

control groups, as well as providing a professional development experience for the

teachers. Evaluation of the intervention was exempt from the requirement of obtaining

informed consent, which would reduce cost and improve efficiency of a longitudinal

study of this intervention.

It is promising that this first, modest intervention took on a life of its own with

continued TIPS assignments, continued phone conversations, and new attendees at parent

night events. This suggests that a full school year study that pre- and post-tested parent

and school staff might detect significant positive changes in attitudes and perceptions.

For parents and staff of chronically low-functioning school districts, this would be a

welcome change.

Conclusion

Although parents’ involvement (PI) in their children’s schooling is associated

with increased student educational achievement, many children who most need effective

PI support do not receive it. PI initiatives in low-resource, minority school districts often

fail to engage a significant percentage of parents as partners in working to improve their

children’s education. The purpose of this dissertation study was to develop and evaluate a

low-cost intervention to increase PI in their children’s education. Phase 1 of the study

was a qualitative assessment of factors that may be reasons for lack of effective parent

involvement among parents of 8th

grade students in a low-income, immigrant, minority

school district. Phase 2 was a quantitative evaluation of an intervention to initiate

63

parent/teacher bidirectional communication among these parents. Although strategies for

increasing PI have been published (Henderson et al., 2007; Epstein et al. 2009), there has

been little quantitative evaluation of the effectiveness of these approaches at increasing PI

or improving academic outcomes. These strategies are designed to be implemented at

district-wide or school-wide levels, which entail substantial financial costs and personnel

time requirements that dissuade low-resource districts and schools from undertaking

them.

Both study phases were conducted at a middle school in lower Westchester

County, New York. The U.S. 2000 Census reported that 60% of the school district’s

68,000 residents are African-American, 29% are white, and 10% are Hispanic of any

race. This is a low-resource school district that has experienced repeated budget freezes

and cuts, and does not have the resources to implement and sustain PI programs that

require substantial funds and substantial use of school personnel time. In the fall of 2010,

the middle school where the study was conducted had 349 8th

grade students. Seventy-

one percent were African-American, 20% were Hispanic, 9% were White or Asian, and

46% were male. Twenty-one percent were special education students and 9% were

English Language Learners, and these students are mainstreamed into regular classes

with support. A majority of students are first or second generation immigrants. Seventy

percent of all students in the school qualify for free or reduced price lunch.

Phase 1 of the study began in March, 2010, when the school provided the

researcher with a list of more than 300 8th

grade parents who were not known by school

teachers or counselors to have had at-school PI in the current school year. Forty of these

parents were randomly chosen to receive an IRB-approved letter inviting them to

64

participate in an interview on PI. The interview was organized using two theoretical

dimensions. The first dimension is a distinction in the PI literature between at-home PI,

such as discussing school activities, helping with homework, monitoring the use of out-

of-school time, or taking children to community cultural events; and at-school PI, such as

contacts with school staff, volunteering at the school, or attending school events. (Ho Sui-

Chu & Willms, 1996; Trusty, 1999) The second dimension is four theoretical concepts

that are believed to be predictors for PI. Hoover-Dempsey and colleagues (2005) argue

that there are three critical concepts for parent involvement: role construction, defined as

parents’ beliefs concerning what they should do with respect to their children’s

education; self-efficacy, defined as parents’ beliefs in how effective they can be in

helping their children succeed in school; and invitations, defined as requests from the

child, teacher, or school to participate in some form of PI. The interviews also focused on

a factor that Mapp (2003) argues is critical for PI at-school: parents’ perceptions that

school staff respect parents, care about their children, and can be trusted. The interviews

were used to assess the acceptability and feasibility of the intervention planned for Phase

2, and to obtain information that would improve the effectiveness of the intervention.

Seventeen audiotaped interviews were the basis for the qualitative data used for

Phase 1 of the study. Fifteen parents of these parents were African-American, one was

Hispanic, and one was White. All parents interviewed regarded involvement in their

child’s education as something that they should do, and that all parents should do. Two-

thirds reported working with their child on homework in the past year. Although the

school staff were requested to provide the researcher with a list of parents not known to

have had at-school PI in the past year, three-fourths reported talking to a teacher in the

65

past year by phone or in-person, and three-fourths reported attendance at some at-school

event in the past year. In terms of homework help self-efficacy, eight parents reported

that they had difficulty with some subjects. Approximately half the parents reported

invitations for involvement or attendance at an event from school, from the teacher, or

from the child. A few parents indicated that they were only contacted by a teacher when

the child had a behavior problem. More than half the parents interviewed indicated that

school staff were adequate or better in caring for children, being trustworthy in terms

providing a safe and effective educational environment, and in respecting parents and

listening to parents. However, one-third said that some teachers and staff just go through

the motions to collect the paycheck. Several said that some teachers and staff were

lacking in respect for parents and willingness to listen to parents and to children. The

critical parents often said that school staff did not promptly identify and respond to

children’s problems. Parents citied barriers limiting at-school PI that included not being

able to drive, lack of proximity to the school, difficulty in attending events between 4 pm

and 8 pm, having two jobs, notices about events that arrive after the event has occurred,

and involvement at a sibling’s school. All parents expressed a willingness to have

telephone conversations with the teachers. The two components of the planned

intervention – parent homework help and a parent phone conversation with the teacher –

were found to be acceptable and feasible. An unexpected finding was that a majority of

parents described past year contact with the school in detail, yet they were on a list of

parents identified by the school as not having had at-school PI. The phenomenon of

school staff underestimating PI is mentioned frequently in the PI literature (Lareau &

Horvat, 1999; Lawson, 2003; and Jackson & Remillard, 2005).

66

Phase 2 began in the summer of 2010 as the researcher worked with three 8th

grade English teachers to plan Teachers Involve Parents in Schoolwork (TIPS)

homework assignments that require that students and their parents work together to

complete the assignment (Epstein et al., 2009). To obtain an independent baseline

measure of PI, a school district employee collected signatures on sign-in sheets for three

parent night events held at the school at the beginning of the fall term. The intervention

began in late October, 2010, with the teachers giving the students the first of seven

weekly TIPS assignments. The three teachers taught a total of nine classes. All students

in all classes received the same TIPS assignments. The first assignment was accompanied

by a letter requesting that the parent assist with the homework. Just before the TIPS

assignments began, one class for each teacher was randomly selected to receive a teacher

to parent outreach intervention, and the letters to these parents stated that the teacher

would call the parent to discuss the assignment and the student’s progress in the class.

Hypotheses to be tested were: (a) A greater proportion of parents of intervention

class students will have had bidirectional communication with the teacher by the end of

the seven-week intervention period than parents of control class students will have had;

(b) A greater proportion of parents of intervention class students will have had contact

with the teacher by the end of the intervention period than parents of control class

students; and (c) Intervention class students will complete more TIPS homework

assignments than control class students; and (d) Intervention class students will have

higher homework grades than control class students. Bidirectional communication was

defined as a conversation of at least five minutes duration that did not primarily focus on

problems of behavior or attendance.

67

There were 61 students in the three intervention classes and 131 students in the

six control group classes. The intervention group was evenly divided by gender, but the

control group was majority female. The control and intervention groups were similar in

race/ethnicity. The difference in proportions in parent night attendance early in the school

year for intervention class parents and control group parents (37.7% vs. 31.3%) was not

significant (Mantel-Haenszel chi-square result = 0.76, p = 0.38).

The four hypotheses were confirmed: (a) the difference between the proportions

of intervention class parents and control class parents (90.2% vs. 25.2%) who had bi-

directional conversations with the teacher was significant (Mantel-Haenszel chi-square

result = 70.40, p < .001); (b) the difference between the proportions of intervention class

parents and control class parents (95.1% vs. 45.8%) who had any contact with the teacher

was significant (Mantel-Haenszel chi-square result = 42.45, p < .001); and (c) the

difference between the proportions of intervention class students and control class

students (63.7% vs. 44.7%) who submitted their homework assignments was significant

(Mantel-Haenszel chi-square result = 42.0, p < .001). To conduct the data analysis,

homework assignment grades were assigned to one of three categories: not submitted

(grade = 0), partial credit (grade = between 3 and 8 clustering about 5), or full credit

(grade = 9 to 10). d) Intervention class students had higher homework grades than control

class students (chi-square test for linear trend in proportions = 62.96, p < .001).

Implications of the study are that parents have a PI role construction, but schools

can assist in overcoming limitations related to self-efficacy, invitations, and perceived

lack of respect, care, and trustworthiness. A low-cost intervention to improve PI at-home

and at-school is feasible, acceptable, and effective. School staff underestimate the

68

willingness of parents for PI, and are likely to find greater response than they might

anticipate by initiating these activities.

A limitation of the study is that the Phase 1 interviews were intended to capture

parents without previous at-school PI. Although the interviews provided information

about parents not perceived by the school to have at-school PI, they did not capture truly

uninvolved parents. In Phase 2, teachers did not manage to engage 10% of intervention

group parents in bidirectional communication, and 15% of all students did not submit a

single homework assignment requiring parents to assist the student with the homework.

The goal of involving all the uninvolved remained elusive. A limitation of Phase 2 is that

the short duration of the intervention did not permit standardized test measurement of

academic improvement.

The teachers found that the intervention was a rewarding professional

development activity. The project took on a life of its own as teachers continued to

administer TIPS assignments even after the seven-week study period ended,

conversations between teachers and parents continued, and parents who had not

previously attended school events came to parent night during the spring term so that they

and the teachers could match voices and faces.

Policy makers should be willing to support the Phase 2 intervention, as the federal

No Child Left Behind Act prioritizes greater parent/teacher bidirectional communication.

There are at least three possible avenues for further research. First, it would be a

straightforward matter to adapt the intervention so that it could be evaluated with

different grade levels and academic subjects, and to introduce components to improve

homework submission rates. A second avenue for future research is to develop and

69

evaluate a model that scaled up the intervention so that telephone outreach could be

provided for all students in a given grade level. Third, there has been an extended debate

in the PI literature as to whether the observed association between greater PI and greater

student academic achievement is causal or simply a correlation. The intervention

evaluated in this study could be extended over a longer period of time to determine if the

increase in PI could be sustained and resulted in students achieving gains in scores on

standardized examinations.

70

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74

Appendix A

Phase 1 Interview Instrument

Thank the parent for coming to the interview

Explain the study, ask for signature on informed consent page

Consent signed Yes No

Parent Name: ________________

Gender _______

Age ___________

Race/Ethnicity __________

Language spoken in home _________

Number of adults living in home ________

Number/Ages of children living in the home ___________________

Gender of child in eighth grade ____________

Years living in [the community] _____________

My study will involve homework assignments that will ask the child and parent to work

together, and involve the teacher in talking to the parent about the assignments and about

how the child is doing in the class. Studies show that children may do better in school if

parents communicate with teachers, but there is not much information about how to

increase this communication. I am asking for your ideas about how to make this work.

There are no “right” or “wrong” answers. Parents can do different things with children at

different ages, or different things depending on what they feel this particular child needs.

So I just need to have you tell me how things are going with your eighth grader.

75

First, I would like to talk about educational activities in the home. Have you and your

child worked together on homework assignments in the past year?

[If No, have you ever helped your children with homework assignments?]

Do you have difficulty with the subject matter in your children’s courses?

What kinds of things do you do to encourage your child in his or her school work?

Do you talk with your child about the school day?

Do you talk about how well you expect your child to do in school?

Do you discuss report cards?

Are there any other activities that you do to help educate your child? [pause, if no

response give examples]: Going to museums, educational movies, trips, concerts,

educational games, teach the child to do things such as shopping, home repairs,

gardening, sports

Does doing educational things at home make a difference in how well children do at

school?

Are these things parents should always do, or only do if they seem to be needed?

76

Now I want to talk about any contacts or involvement you have had with your child’s

teachers or the school. Have you talked with your child’s teacher in the past year? What

were these experiences like?

[If No] Have you talked with your children’s teachers at any time in the past? What were

these experiences like?

Suppose it could be arranged for you to have a phone conversation with your child’s

teacher about how he or she is doing in the class. Would you want to do this?

What kinds of information or ideas should parents and teachers be able to exchange?

Would you be able to find time to have this kind of phone conversation?

In the past year, did you go to the school to attend events, such as parent nights or sports

events, or to volunteer? What were these experiences like?

[If No] Did you go in previous years? What were these experiences like?

Do you feel that talking with the teacher or going to school events are things parents

should always do, or only do if they seem to be needed?

Do you feel that doing these things makes a difference?

Do you feel you have enough time, energy and opportunity to be as involved as you

would like in school-related activities concerning your child’s education?

If you are not as involved at the school as you would like, what things are preventing you

from doing so?

77

Now I want to ask you in more detail about any specific invitations you may have

received to be involved in your child’s education.

In the past year, has your child asked you to help with homework, attend an event at

school, or do anything else with respect to his/her studies? [If yes], what was it like?

In the past year, did you receive invitations from any of your child’s teachers to speak to

the teacher, or come to the school? [If they simply say yes] Which subject matter teacher

was it? How did you respond?

[If you spoke with the teacher, or went to the school] What was it like?

Besides your child’s teachers, did you receive any other invitations from the school to

participate in events or other activities at school?

[If yes] How did you respond?

[If the parent went to the school] what was it like?

78

Now I am interested in your attitudes toward the school.

Do you feel that the teachers and staff care?

How well do they understand your child’s needs?

Can they be trusted to provide a good education?

Can they be trusted to maintain a safe school environment?

Do the teachers and other staff respect parents?

Do the teachers and staff listen to parents?

Are you comfortable asking the teachers or staff questions?

What is your overall attitude toward the school?

What is your overall attitude toward the school system?

[If parents report negative experiences with the school in the past, ask what they think a

positive experience should be like.]

Are there any issues I haven’t asked about that you would like to talk about?

79

Appendix B

Phase 2 Data Collection Sheet

[Sample Data Collection Sheet]

Student name, gender, race/ethnicity, 7 weekly TIPS assignment grades, parent attends at least one parent event at the school, parent

has any positive contact with the teacher at any time in the fall term, parent and teacher have conversation on student achievement of

at least five minutes duration at any time in the fall term. Teacher will check the parent night box if she observes the parent at a parent

event. Parent Liaison will check the parent night box if she obtains the parent’s signature on a parent event sign-in sheet.

Teacher: Ms. Jones

Class: 5th

Period

Student Name Gen R/E T1 T2 T3 T4 T5 T6 T7 Parent

Night Any

Contact 5 Min Conv.

John Doe M B 9 8 9 7 10 9 10 X X X

Jane Lopez F H 8 8 0 8 9 7 9 X

Etc.